A Matter of Trust

by Maxine Barry

  ‘You must feel really strange about all this,’ Markie said thoughtfully, coming to stand beside him. ‘Is that why you didn’t actually give him Dr Naismith’s name?’

  ‘Partly,’ Callum agreed. ‘But mostly because I need to read the results of all of Vivian’s research first. It’s possible he could have made some errors.’ His lips twisted as she gave him a knowing look. ‘Yes, I know, it’s unlikely. But damn it, Markie, you don’t just accuse a colleague of theft and plagiarism without being absolutely sure of your facts first. Besides, one of the first rules is always check your data. Not that I don’t trust Sir Vivian to have done his homework, but still, I have to check it out for myself as well.’

  ‘So once we’re back at Oxford, you want to hit the libraries, right?’

  ‘Right.’

  Markie nodded. ‘OK. You carry on reading, and I’ll make us some Dinner.’

  Callum looked at her surprised. ‘You can cook?’

  Markie put her hands on her hips and glared at him. ‘Of course I can cook,’ she scoffed.

  She didn’t, however, tell him that she could cook particularly well.

  * * *

  Considering she had recourse only to the tins and dried staples with which the tiny cottage kitchen was stocked, she thought she hadn’t done too badly. A few hours later, they sat down to the first course, tinned soup and herb bread croutons. Callum ate with a mechanical air that told her he was not really tasting the food, which was probably just as well, she thought wryly.

  ‘So, you’ve never been married?’ she said artlessly, making him nearly choke.

  He patted his mouth with a paper napkin and shook his head. ‘No. You?’

  ‘Not so far,’ she said gaily. ‘But it’s not as if I’m anti-marriage or anything. If the right man came along, I suppose I’d consider it.’

  ‘Very magnanimous of you.’

  ‘I thought so.’ She cleared away the soup bowls, and came back with a makeshift stew of tinned stewed beef, tinned carrots and tomatoes, with a scattering of dried herbs for flavouring. Without a word, Callum began stoically eating again.

  Markie grinned. Just wait until he realised what she had planned for dessert!

  * * *

  It was nearly midnight before Callum had finished reading the last of Sir Vivian’s notes, and feeling tired, depressed and heartsick, he turned off the downstairs lights and climbed the steep wooden stairs.

  Markie had gone to bed an hour ago, saying she was sleepy, and he’d barely muttered a vague ‘goodnight’ in her direction. Now he was careful not to turn on the landing lights as he made his way to the biggest of the two bedrooms, determined not to disturb her. He trod lightly, and opened the bedroom door with a silent snick. The curtains inside were drawn, and as he shucked off his clothes, he reflected that tomorrow was going to be a grim day.

  Once Lisle Jarvis was presented with Rosemary’s name as the one Sir Vivian was going to denounce, her movements on the night of the Prize-giving party were going to be put under a microscope. He could only hope that they’d stand up to such scrutiny.

  But deep inside he had the sick feeling of dread that they would not. And the thought of what would happen then made his head ache. The scandal for the city, and the university in particular, wasn’t even the worst of it. There were June Dalrymple’s feelings to consider, when it all came out, as well as the tragedy for Rosemary Naismith. How would a woman like that take to being sent to prison?

  He pulled back the blankets and slid his naked form into the bed, then jumped as a warm hand and knowing fingers slipped up his back, and hooked over one broad shoulder.

  ‘I thought you were never coming up,’ Markie complained softly.

  ‘Sorry. I thought we’d agreed you were having the smaller room,’ he said stiffly, putting one foot on the floor, preparatory to leaving.

  For a slightly built woman, Markie Kendall’s grip was remarkably firm as she pulled him back down onto the mattress. ‘You agreed that I’d be sleeping in a different bedroom,’ she corrected huskily. ‘I just never put you right.’

  In the darkness, Callum tensed. ‘I don’t think this is a good idea.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No,’ he said resolutely.

  A pair of soft lips brushed the column of his neck. ‘No?’

  He swallowed hard. ‘No.’

  Her hand moved down his shoulder, across his chest, and began to dance over one hard, male nipple. She pinched it hard, just short of pain, making his muscles clench in exquisite anticipation.

  ‘No?’ she whispered.

  He tried to speak, but found he couldn’t, and merely shook his head instead. In the darkness, she interpreted the movement and smiled.

  She bent her head, and began nibbling on one earlobe. Then she let her tongue dart into his sensitive ear, and sighed softly.

  ‘No?’ she murmured. ‘Really?’

  Callum groaned.

  She pressed herself against his back, her tender naked breasts pressing into the hollows of his shoulderblades.

  ‘No?’

  Callum turned onto his side and wordlessly reached for her. For all that he was so much bigger than her, he was a remarkably tender lover, careful, considerate and consummate. Markie soon found that she couldn’t speak either, but her cries grew from soft, whispering endearments, to sharper, higher, moaning cries as he nudged her legs apart and with a sure, firm and conquering thrust, entered her. Her fingernails raked his back, and her heart hammered as she heard him moan in response.

  Years spent keeping fit in the gym lent her shapely legs a surprising strength, as she hooked them over his hips and her hands on his firm masculine buttocks pulled him ever more deeply into the core of her femininity.

  The slow, sensual dance became faster, more urgent, and soon Markie could only scream his name as she felt her body shudder and spasm beneath his heavy, comforting weight.

  Later, in the darkness of the night, as Markie Kendall slept happily in his arms, Callum Fielding lay awake, cursing his stupidity.

  Because it was impossible. Their pairing was simply doomed to failure. And he would have to tell her soon. Tomorrow maybe. No, perhaps not tomorrow. There was so much to do tomorrow. But the day after, perhaps.

  The grim decision made, Callum nodded in the darkness. Yes, it had to be done soon. Because he had the feeling that if it wasn’t done soon, hearts might be broken.

  * * *

  The next morning, Lisle was pacing up and down in Nesta’s bedsit. She’d insisted on not spending the night at his place, and had been out when he arrived at her digs. And since he had no way of knowing where she was, he was forced to pace and wait.

  It was not yet mid-day, but he could feel the morning ticking away. Once again, the sensation of time running out became stronger and stronger. With every moment that passed, the chances of finding Sir Vivian’s killer were getting more and more remote. Which meant that he felt more and more guilty at being here at all. He cursed and paced some more.

  He tensed as he heard a sound outside, and suddenly Nesta was in the room. She brought with her a sense of fresh air, of real life, of vibrancy and passion. She saw him, and beamed. ‘Lisle! You’ll have to stop sneaking these odd hours to be with me,’ she teased. ‘You’ll get the sack.’

  ‘I want to know exactly why you went to see Sir Vivian,’ he said curtly. ‘I’ve had enough of pretend mistress, pretend would-be student, pretend lost earrings. I want to know the whole story, here and now.’

  His voice was as hard as diamonds.

  Nesta stared at him in blank amazement. ‘I thought we had this all sorted out?’ she said, a worried frown crossing her brows. ‘I don’t know who killed him. We both know that I had nothing to do with that.’

  ‘Why did you come to Oxford, Nesta?’ he asked, more calmly this time, hating to see the look of hurt in her big green eyes. And hating even more the fact that he had put it there.

  Nesta blinked. She could lie to him no longer. ‘It was som
ething to do with my father. He was a student here, many years ago. He’d got a B.A. in Experimental psychology. He died, like I think I told you, when his push-bike was hit by a lorry.’

  Lisle shook his head. She was so obviously telling him the truth that he felt sick to his stomach. Why had he suspected that she knew something? That she might somehow be the key to this damned case? He was so crazy-much in love with her, he was letting it distort his whole method of thinking!

  And all she’d been doing was catching up on old times, for pity’s sake! A natural enough thing to do, considering she’d just got her own B.A.

  ‘Oh, Nesta!’ he said tiredly, holding out his arms to her. ‘Come here.’

  Nesta needed no second bidding. She held him to her, stroking his hair, sensing some kind of crisis, and determined to deal with it. ‘This case is getting to you, isn’t it?’ she murmured quietly. ‘Come here.’ She led him to the sofa, and sat him down on it. Overwork, stress, she could see it all. And she knew only too well where that could lead. To burn out, or even worse—a coronary! And it was not going to happen to him!

  ‘Let me kiss it better,’ she offered huskily. Her lips met his, then slid down the side of his neck. He smelt of aftershave, and car-leather. She kissed his throat, tracing the rise and fall of his Adam’s apple as he swallowed compulsively. Her hands went to his chest, pushing aside his jacket to run across his rib cage.

  He sighed. ‘I have to get back,’ he muttered, but without any real enthusiasm. ‘I left Jim . . .’

  ‘Hmm, poor Jim,’ Nesta sighed, and opened two buttons to give her access to his sternum. She kissed him softly, square in the middle of his chest.

  Lisle sighed. The clock was still ticking. From what he’d intimated last night, Callum Fielding might be putting himself in danger. He had to concentrate on what he’d say at the interview, when the psychology Don got back from Cornwall.

  But Nesta was unbuckling his belt now, and he told himself that he could do nothing until they found out what Callum and Markie Kendall had discovered at Sir Vivian’s country place. He sighed, and then gasped, as her knowing fingers slipped down between his trousers and underwear, her knuckles massaging the growing hardness she found there.

  He stretched on the sofa, allowing her rubbing hands more freedom.

  Nesta smiled, loving the way the tension eased from his face. ‘You like that?’ she asked huskily.

  Slowly she slipped to the floor, pulling down his trousers, having to wrest off his shoes before freeing him. She kissed the sides of his knees, then moved higher, kissing his trembling thighs, then higher, pressing her tongue against the clean white cotton of his briefs, feeling the hot, pulsating flesh jump beneath her tongue.

  Lisle groaned, shrugged himself naked, slipped off the sofa, and rolled her beneath him. The floorboards gave a protesting squeak.

  Nesta giggled, then lifted her hips to slip off her own panties.

  Soon they came together, Nesta giving a gasp of satisfaction as his long hot length filled her. She clamped her legs around him, holding him against her breast as they moved together in a dance as old as time. For long, long minutes, the pleasure built, the power, passion and urgency of love, ebbing and flowing around them, building in one, then the other, then together, always together, harder, faster, deeper, harder, until they were moaning together, their cries timed to the thrust of their bodies.

  A single moment of universe-shattering importance. Then the slow, languorous, sweet slide back to earth.

  Afterwards, Lisle dressed almost immediately. He still felt guilty for even taking these few stolen minutes with her.

  Nesta watched him dress and straightened her own clothes. She didn’t even think of protesting. He obviously had something breaking in the case, and finding the killer of that lovely old man was more important, at the moment, than anything else. And she had no problem with that.

  Lisle finger-brushed his hair, and walked to the door. At the door he turned and looked at her.

  ‘Did Sir Vivian tell you what you wanted to know? About your father?’ he asked softly.

  He assumed that Sir Vivian had been her father’s supervisor. He supposed, as D.Phil. theses could take as much as 15 years to complete, that a supervisor and his student could grow into good friends over the years.

  Nesta’s face clouded a little. ‘I don’t know,’ she said honestly. ‘He never got the chance to tell me.’

  If Lisle hadn’t been so anxious to get back to the office and check on their progress, he might have asked her what she meant by that.

  And Nesta, unable to deny him anything, would have told him all about her suspicions of her father’s supervisor, Rosemary Naismith, stealing his thesis.

  But, as they were both to learn much later, that day was going to be a day choc-a-block with such ironies.

  And danger beyond their wildest dreams.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  It was nearly eleven o’clock the next morning before Callum and Markie finally set out from Cornwall for Oxford. He’d intended to get an early start, but had got rather distracted.

  Markie was very good at that.

  Now as they drove towards Oxford, she leaned back in her seat and stretched like a cat that had fed well on cream and canaries.

  ‘When we get back to the city, I need to do some work at the Bodleian, before we take what we know to Inspector Jarvis,’ he said, trying to keep his eyes firmly on the twisting road ahead, and not on the way her breasts strained against her blouse.

  ‘OK. You can drop me off at the hotel, and we’ll meet up—say about fiveish, at St Bede’s?’ she replied.

  Callum nodded. ‘That sounds good.’

  ‘Then we’ll go and speak to that wretched policeman together,’ she said with satisfaction.

  Callum’s smile widened. ‘What have you got against poor Inspector Jarvis? He struck me as being an honest man, doing a good job.’

  ‘He had you in his sights, that’s what I’ve got against him,’ Markie grumbled. ‘And anyone who’s against my man has got me to contend with as well.’

  Callum felt himself go hot, then cold, at her words.

  Her man.

  But he wasn’t her man. And he could never be her man. It was just impossible. Their worlds were too vastly different. Their personalities too mismatched. They didn’t think the same, and surely couldn’t want the same things.

  Callum knew himself well enough to know that if he ever did give his heart and love unstintingly to any woman, he would at some point want marriage and kids. And what supermodel would ruin her figure with childbearing? Or give up her jet-setting, glamorous life to live in Oxford?

  He drove in silence, unaware that he’d tensed in his seat, or that his lips were pulled in a tight line, or that Markie Kendall had seen and noted all these tell-tale little signs.

  And when he did turn to glance at her, she was looking out of the window, her face turned away, so that he couldn’t see the pain in her eyes.

  * * *

  Rosemary Naismith left her flat and drove towards the suburb of Headington. She parked her car down one of the many little cul-de-sacs, filled with small, boxy housing, and walked down several more little narrow streets and mini-housing estates. She looked over her shoulder several times, but was sure she wasn’t being followed.

  Ever since Sir Vivian had cornered her at that damned party, and told her he knew her thesis had been stolen work, she’d never felt totally safe. As the street lamps came on, and the day around her darkened ever further, she picked up her pace.

  But her mind kept going back to the night of the Prize-giving Dinner.

  It had started so well. Even though she knew things were over with Pete, her current partner, and half-suspected that he’d use the time she was out to pack more of his things, she’d been in a good mood. After all, she might just win the Prize—or, perhaps, and far more likely, she still might be able to sell a sob-story to Callum Fielding and get him to share a little largesse if he won it. Eve
r since she’d tutored him as a young man, she’d always suspected that Callum Fielding had a compassionate heart, beneath that buttoned-down exterior he showed to the world. Which made him eminently exploitable. Or so she’d thought, until she’d quickly realised that getting him into her bed wasn’t going to be as easy as she’d expected. Still, that was then, and this was now, and she had never been one for giving up!

  So she’d dressed well and gone to St Bede’s, flirted, and had dined (for once) on reasonable food, and been looking forward to the announcement. Of course Callum snaffled the Prize. It had annoyed her to be right, and of course she was disappointed not to have got it herself, but it was nothing she couldn’t handle.

  Just another day at the office.

  And then that stupid old man had made that first crack. About someone not deserving their reputation. For a second or two it had paralysed her. But then she’d forced herself to relax. There was no reason, after all, to suspect that the old fool had a bee in his bonnet about her, specifically. He could have picked up on anybody’s skeleton in the closet. She’d told herself that she was just being ultra sensitive, when it came to that subject.

  But then came the after-Dinner party in the SCR. The old man had become even more drunk and yet more voluble. But he had never come out and actually mentioned a name. And so she’d allowed herself to hope that whatever it was that had the stupid old man in such an indignant lather didn’t have anything to do with her own shameful secret.

  Until, fortified on his wine and brandy and sherry, he’d finally cornered her, and, thankfully keeping his voice low, had told her that he knew what she’d done.

  At first she’d tried to bluff it out, keeping a wary eye on all the other guests, in case they were being overheard. But everyone just gave her sympathetic looks, no doubt thinking that Sir Vivian was making a fool of himself with her, now.